Adrift
by Sporktacular
Summary: Yuuta's brother has a new boyfriend, but Yuuta's totally okay with it. Really! Would you stop asking already? Written from the POV of unrequited Fujicest, but doesn't have to be taken that way. 30 Kisses theme #29: the sound of waves.


_30 Kisses theme #29: the sound of waves.

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Yuuta's outstretched fingertips met the tiled edge of the pool, and he pulled himself in and pushed off again, the bottoms of his bare feet scraping against the rough surface of the wall. He usually ran in the mornings, now that tournament season was over and there was no practice before class, but running always made him feel better, and Yuuta didn't want to feel better. He wanted to sulk.

Yuuta was a master of sulking, and St. Rudolph's pool was one of his favorite places to have a really good go at it. It was always nearly empty in the morning, and there weren't any distractions, just the sound of water against your eardrums and the steady, methodical back and forth between the two identical blank walls. None of that sunshine and birds singing and other junk that you got outdoors.

It wasn't that there was anything bothering Yuuta; he just happened to be in the mood to sulk. He was really quite fine. Absolutely, perfectly fine. After all, it wasn't any of _his_ business who Aniki decided to date. It just would have been _nice_ if when his brother had called and said, "Hey Yuuta, why don't you come home for dinner Sunday?" he'd _mentioned_ that he was going to be introducing his new boyfriend to the family. That was the sort of thing _normal_ people did. But Yuuta was fine with it. He didn't care if his brother was gay; like they hadn't all figured _that_ out a long time ago. And he didn't care if his brother liked a split-personality weirdo who called him dumb girly names and could probably benefit from some serious psychotherapy. (Sure, he pulled the nice quiet boy routine in front of 'Kaa-san and 'Nee-chan, but Yuuta had played tennis with him, and knew better.) Hell, the more messed up the guy was, the more perfect he probably was for Aniki. And Yuuta definitely didn't care if his freak brother and his freak brother's freak boyfriend went on dates, or if they held hands, or if they kissed--

Yuuta shook his head and water went up his nose. He spluttered to the surface and treaded water, glaring hard at the dancing reflections of light. He was totally fine with it! He didn't need Aniki pulling him aside after dinner and softly asking if he was really okay, or Yumiko cornering him in the entryway as he was putting his coat on, wanting to know how he was handling things and then giving him that _look_ when he said he was all right, as if _she_ knew so much about everything. Why couldn't anyone seem to understand that he was completely _fine_?!

"Is something bothering you, Yuuta-kun?"

Yuuta choked on a mouthful of water as he whirled around. "Mizuki-san!" he coughed. He hadn't heard the tennis club's manager swim over. "What are you doing here?"

Mizuki patted him on the back a few times. "I heard that your brother's found himself a boyfriend," he said.

Yuuta's throat burned. Great. If Mizuki knew, then every tennis team in Kanto knew. They'd probably start calling him "the gay prodigy Fuji Syuusuke's little brother".

"Are you taking it all right?" Mizuki asked, misinterpreting Yuuta's dismay.

Yuuta coughed again. His throat still felt all weird and watery. "Yeah," he said, "I'm fine."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"You know, there's nothing wrong with a boy liking another boy."

"I know!" Yuuta said, a little more emphatically than he had intended.

Mizuki nodded wisely and twirled his hair. Wet hair appeared to not twirl nearly as easily as dry hair. "In fact, they say that it's genetic."

"Really." Mizuki-san had a habit of standing very close to people when he talked, and Yuuta was trying to drift away without being too obvious.

"Yes. What do _you_ think of that, Yuuta-kun?"

"Uh...." Somehow, it seemed to Yuuta that most of his conversations with Mizuki-san ended up with him not being quite sure exactly what they were talking about. He hoped his senpai didn't think he was some kind of idiot.

"Fuji Yuuta-kun!" the pool monitor called. "Telephone call for Fuji Yuuta-kun!"

Mizuki swore under his breath and Yuuta politely pretended not to notice. As he swam over to the edge of the pool and pulled himself out, he was glad for once that his brother was never satisfied with leaving a voicemail on his cell phone like a normal person.

The monitor showed him to the phone in the pool office. "Hello?"

"Ah, there you are, Yuuta. I was beginning to wonder if you'd turned into a prune. Remember the first time you took a bath by yourself, you stayed in there so long 'Kaa-san thought you'd drowned and made you take baths with me for another two years?"

"Shut up."

"My my, there's no need to get sulky."

"I'm not sulking!" Yuuta snapped. "What do you want?"

"I wanted to make sure you're really okay with what happened last night."

Yuuta sighed. It wasn't even first period and he already had a headache. "I told you, I'm fine!"

"Then why are you sulking?"

"ANIKI!" Yuuta shouted, then remembered his guidance counselor's advice about deep, calming breaths. "Look," he said slowly, "I'm _fine_. It's up to you, right? I mean, whoever you date, it doesn't have anything to do with me."

There was no answer on the other end of the line.

"Aniki?"

"Yeah, Yuuta, I guess you're right."

Aniki's voice sounded so small and distant that Yuuta didn't know what to say. He stood in the office and twisted the telephone cord around his hand. The puddle from his dripping swim trunks drained slowly into a grate in the floor.

"Don't you have class?" Aniki finally asked.

Yuuta looked up at the clock. "SHIT!" he yelled, then dropped the phone as he clamped both hands over his mouth. Bad language was five demerits. He shouted a goodbye in the general direction of the phone as he untangled himself from the cord and slammed the receiver into the cradle.

-----

Yuuta got ten demerits for being late to chemistry. They spent the period learning about the properties of combustion, which for some reason made him even sulkier than before. But when anyone asked, he told them he was fine.


End file.
